


Let the World Sink

by GlassPrism



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2019-08-18 20:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassPrism/pseuds/GlassPrism
Summary: When Talia falls ill, Bane dares to dream of escape to a world where he might never fear to lose her again. Published on FanFiction.net on July 9, 2013; transferred to AO3 on November 4, 2018.





	1. With You

It was the shouting that made her open her eyes and poke her head out of the blanket she shared with her protector.

Early morning in the pit was cool and dark, which was likely why the man was choosing to make the climb. Talia knew of the heat that made one feel listless and unenergetic, the limbs slow to respond.

The ledge of the cell prevented her from seeing the man or the crowd. For that, she would have to go outside.

She got up carefully, swaying slightly from the sudden act of getting up, pushing the blanket gently aside while keeping a close eye on her protector. Bane had an extraordinarily annoying skill at feigning sleep. Too often, Talia would try to crawl out of the bed early, only for him to reach out, eyes still closed and with no discernible change in breathing, and scoop her back into beside him.

But this time, she made it over his body and out of the bed with no incident. Still on bare feet, she tiptoed to the cell door and unlocked it. The creak of the metal hinges made her wince and glance back at the bed, but Bane had not moved.

He was definitely awake, she decided. She had seen him spring up at a whisper from her; there was no way he could sleep through the noise and shuffling she had made. But he was not stopping her, which meant he had given his tacit permission for her to investigate.

She shot a glance down both ends cells, checking the corners, then scampered out, gripping the railings. At the other end of the prison, she saw a man, the rope already tied around his waist. He was rubbing his arms and legs, gaze fixed on the opening above them all. Other prisoners had gathered around him, starting up the chant they always used when one attempted the climb.

The man leaped onto the rocks with a fury that surprised Talia, then started up the rocks. She twisted her hands around the metal railing as he climbed higher. Not many had the courage or strength to attempt the climb, and those who did often did not make it to the ledge, falling when their hands slipped on the rocks of the walls. But this man scaled them carefully, stopping to check his footing, to plan his route. As the sky grew lighter, he drew nearer the ledge.

She squeezed the bar as he pushed himself onto the ledge. The man was now only a dark speck, barely discernible. He was close to the opening, so very close. He had only a leap to the next outcropping of rock. As she watched, she could see tiny movements, the adjustment of the rope, the stretching of tired limbs in preparation for the jump. The chant was nearing its climax, a shout rumbling around the prison. She climbed up onto the railing just as the man made the leap.

His arms flailed at the ledge uselessly as he missed. The chanting stopped abruptly. The only sound then was the snap of the rope, and possibly the man's back, as his fall came to a sudden stop.

A sigh seemed to sweep over the collective prisoners, though perhaps it was only the shuffle of their feet on the stone as they moved away, already losing interest. Talia climbed down the railing, pulling back into the cell, as the other men left. The climber was being lowered down, his body hanging limply from the rope. Whether he was dead or merely unconscious, she did not know.

She closed the cell door as the body hit the ground, not wanting to know the fate of the man who had pressed on so bravely during the climb. Locking the door, she turned towards the bed, not surprised to see Bane's eyes open and looking at her.

"He did not make it," he said. It was not a question.

She shook her head.

He turned away. "Of course not." He held up the blanket and gestured her towards it. She climbed onto the bed and over his large body, flopping herself beside him and against the wall where she always slept.

"They never do," he said, folding the blanket over her.

She grabbed his arm and plopped it over her own shoulder. "You could," she said. Only the strong could make the climb all the way up to the ledge, and Bane was the strongest man she knew. "Did you ever try?"

He cocked his head at her. "Is that why you insist on watching them? Thinking of me, falling..."

"No." She was silent for a moment, gazing at him. She lifted a finger and traced it down the bridge of his nose to his lips. "But you could. I know you could." She imagined it for a few moments, him traversing the walls, leaping off the ledge, climbing into the bright sunlight...

Bane sighed, Talia feeling his breath hot against her hand. "Nobody makes it, little one." He drew back to look down at her. "And if I did, who would be around to take care of you?"

She had not considered that, considered that he would leave her. The thought alone made her stomach queasy, and she pushed her head under his chin, his scent and the feel of him reassuring her of his continued presence. "You won't ever leave without me, will you Bane?"

"No little one. We leave together or not at all."

She smiled at his reassurance before her thoughts turned elsewhere. "You said _I_ would climb out," she reminded him, voice muffled against his chest.

"Mmm..." He ran a hand down her head and its fuzzy crop of hair. "That I did." His fingers brushed her forehead, stopped. She glanced up and saw him pull away from her, frowning. She blinked up at him curiously; had her words disturbed him that much? She only grew more puzzled when he put a finger to her forehead.

"Are you warm?" he asked abruptly.

She blinked at the unexpected question, but shook her head. If anything, she felt rather cool. His frown deepened, but he accepted her nuzzle into his shirt without another comment.

"Well?" she said.

"Well, what?"

"You said I would rise."

"I did. You will climb up the rocks. You will not slip as the others do, but get to the ledge. And when you jump, you will fly."

"And you will come too, right?" she added. There was no safety without Bane at her side, no comfort without his arms holding her tight and holding back the frightful things that came from the shadows.

He was silent a moment, as if the question had never occurred to him. "Of course, little one." She smiled, satisfied, and felt a low vibration through his chest, as if he were sighing. "But... not now." He tucked the blanket in tighter. "When you are bigger, stronger. Now, go back to sleep."

* * *

The illness came with the summer sands.

Bane had never been afraid of disease. Most passed over him without affecting him at all; only a few times had he suffered a low fever that died within a day, often the same sicknesses that struck down men in droves. Foolishly, he thought that his immunity might be given to another, that his mere presence might guard her from disease. For a time, it seemed he was right, for the girl had never caught the plague that sometimes went around the prison, nor the sleeping sickness, nor any of the other innumerable diseases that came when so many men were locked up together. In their time together, she had not suffered anything beyond a temporary cough from the dryness of the desert.

This time, though, was different.

Talia began to show symptoms in the middle of the day, that same day she had been gazing out at the climbing man. She was sluggish, though he had not noticed it overly much. It was the hottest time of the year, and most of the inmates would spend their days in the cell, dozing away until night time, when it would be cooler. She had never lacked for energy, but today she had looked rather dazed, and complained of a headache. The heat, he thought, and he let her lie a bit longer in the bed, the blankets bunched at her feet, and sat by her side, watching the dust gather around the bars of their shared cell.

But later, he had come back with food and found her barely able to sit up. When he shook her awake and offered her bread, she had to grip the wall for support and said that her head was spinning, and when he offered her some bread, she shook her head slowly and lay back into her pillow. He left the bread beside her, knowing she would eat when she was hungry, and left to conduct business among the other prisoners. When he returned, he found the bread untouched and attracting an all-too-inquisitive rat. He squashed it, then sat down beside the girl, concerned. He had seen the doctor take the temperature of his patients before, and had tried it himself, putting a hand against her forehead and then to his own to compare. It had not helped. She was warm - what wasn't, in this heat? - but he could not be sure if she was too warm. He let her sleep longer, hoping that the cool night air would help her recover.

By then, though, it was clear she was ill. He had lain down beside her and drawn back, for her body had felt as if it were giving off its own heat. She had felt him move and had opened her eyes, puzzled as to why he wasn't joining her in the bed.

"You are very warm, little one," he explained. He put a hand to her forehead once again, but pulled back quickly. She felt as if she was on fire. "You are ill."

"I feel a little better," she whispered, pushing up against him. She watched as he reformed their blanket, but her eyes had a glazed quality to them, and he knew she was lying.

"Sleep," he told her, and she closed her eyes and sighed. It seemed foolish to wrap a blanket around her, not when her body was already so warm. So he lay back down next to her and let her pull an arm around her own body, and tried to get used to how hot she was – as if he were holding a burning ember to his chest. He pushed his nose into her head and let her smell fill his nose - a sweet, clean scent underneath the pungent odor of her sweat, with a hint of freshness that he thought might be similar to the smell of air in the outside world that some of the men spoke so longingly of.

She woke him up in the middle of the night, though unintentionally. She had clambered around him to retrieve the blankets, but even in the darkness he could sense her weakness, her fumbling, clumsy movements. When she began to pant from the exertion, he sat up, pushed her back down, and pulled the cover around her. Never had she grown so tired so quickly from such a little thing.

"You don't need the blanket, little one," he said quietly. "You are hot enough to warm the entire cell."

She shivered next to him, curling her body up. "But I'm cold."

So he laid the sheet over her, tucking it close around her shoulders and body, pulled her close to him and stayed awake, feeling the heat of her fever burn him.

In the morning, she was so hot he could not bear to touch her for long, yet even as the sun rose directly over the pit, she continued to shiver.

"I'm cold," she murmured again, twisting her body around his.

"How can you be?" he whispered back. "You are sweating so much." Her face was shining with wetness, her clothing soaked; it had even seeped into the blanket.

She shook her head. "I want the sun," she mumbled into the blanket. "Can I see the sun?"

But when he brought her out of the cell into the light, swaddling her in blankets and robe, she buried her head into his chest and did not look at the bright ball hovering above them. But she sighed and he could feel her tense little body unwind, soaking up the sun like one of the few, rare plants that would sometimes grow in the pit, their roots set into the cracks of the stone walls but their thin stems drawn up towards the light.

"Feels good," Talia said, face still in his shirt.

"Mmm." He stroked her head gently - even the short fuzz of her hair was damp with sweat - then reached into his pocket. "Eat, little one." He pressed the bread to her hand.

She glanced at it, taking too long to comprehend what he had given her. "I'm not hungry." She dropped her head back to his chest.

"You are always hungry," he said almost angrily. Always - returning to find her rubbing away her stomach pangs, standing still as she scrambled through his robe for crumbs, watching her small face light up when he came back with some new, rare treat. He had learned to go long periods with only a little food, but not her, and trading for more now made up the majority of the business he conducted with the other prisoners.

Talia shook her head. "Well, I'm not," she said, a touch indignantly. He let it pass; she could eat more when she was recovered.

Later, he pulled the blanket from her grip to let it dry, knowing that its dampness could not help her. It had not taken long for her sweat to evaporate into the dry desert air, and then he had bundled the blanket around her and held her even though it was almost painful to touch her. But soon, too soon, she was shivering again, clinging to him for heat, asking him to let her out, please, to soak in the sun, and he knew her confused mind could not register that the sun had long since fallen over the lip of the pit. So instead, he took the precious bits of wood he had gathered and gathered it into a small pyramid, then took his two rocks and sparked a fire to life. It was insanity, to build one in the hottest part of the year, when even the night was sometimes too warm for blankets, and within moments he was sweating as much as she had been before, but he forgot all about it when Talia awoke from her fitful doze, turned towards the orange flames, and smiled, holding her hand out weakly to it.

"But it's not raining," she whispered, her half-sleepy gaze going up to his. He usually would make a fire during the rainy part of the year, when the nights were coldest. The long nights, with crackling flames mixed with the pattering of rain and Talia's warm weight resting in his arms now seemed very far away.

"This is more important," he told her, lifting her so that she might sit up, resting against his chest. He gripped her arm in his hand, surprised at how thin it was, and held her hand towards the heat, and she smiled and nodded off to sleep once more.

In the morning, the fire was dead and Talia was stirring fretfully in her sleep, eyelids fluttering with dark dreams, a sheen of sweat on her face. He awoke her and tried to get her to eat, soaking the bread in water to soften it. She managed half a piece, but could barely lift her head.

"It doesn't feel good," she whispered to him. Her eyes seemed to see past him. "It feels like spinning."

 _Dizzy_ , he wanted to correct her, but he didn't. "Eat more," he told her, dumping the bread in the bowl of water and passing it to her. She shook her head and pushed it away. He grabbed her wrist. "Now, Talia."

"Bane-"

"I said _now_." He grabbed her face, not caring at this point if he was being too rough. "Talia." She went still, for he never said her name, not unless he was angry or, far worse, afraid. He released her chin and tilted her eyes up to his. "Eat it now, or I force it down your throat."

Her eyes grew very wide, but at least there was some focus to them now. She pressed the bread unwillingly to her lips, taking small bites. Each mouthful took an age to go down.

As she ate, Bane said, trying to be more gentle, "You have to eat something, or you won't get better." He held the bowl of water to her lips and let her sip. It was his last, and soon there would only be a few skins of water left, but he didn't care. Panic was beginning to flutter at the back of his mind, beating against rational thought. He could not lose her.

Only when the entire piece had been swallowed did he let her sleep. He lay down beside her, touching her gingerly. Her skin felt dry as bone, and so fragile he thought he might pierce it should he press too hard. Releasing her, he settled beside her, but sleep was slow to come. The worry would not go away; it felt as if it were growing like it's own disease, squeezing his chest and making him weak and helpless. He could not afford to be weak and helpless right now. He had to be strong for her. He had always been strong for her, had protected her and hidden her away from the dangers of the prison. But with all his strength, he could not protect her from a simple illness; all his power but it was her tiny, fragile body that was killing her, and he could do nothing but watch.

He pushed the fear down forcefully. She was eating and drinking, that would give her strength, and she was sweating. Sweating was good, the men had said so before; sweat the illness out, and Talia had sweated enough for the entire prison. Eat and drink and sweat and rest, and she would be running about, crawling over his body when he was too tired to drag her back, chattering at him and running loose over the prison...

He didn't know how he felt her twitch. All he knew was that he was about to sleep, in the half-dozing sleep between wakefulness and unconsciousness, when he felt her shift. It was not the painfully slow movements that were all she could manage for the last few days, but a sudden start, and before he knew what was happening, she had sat up and almost launched herself over his body, but even then he did not quite register what was going on until he heard her retch and a wet splash.

"Ta-" He stopped himself, pushed himself up and grabbed her, for without his body to lean on she had nearly slipped off the bed into her own pool of vomit. Her body spasmed in his hands, and for one horrid moment he was caught in a memory of a man he had strangled who had flailed under his grip in the exact same way – then she relaxed and threw up again, brown sludge enlarging the pool under her.

She gasped, her hands clutching desperately at him. "Bane-" That was all she could manage before her body twisted itself up and forced out the bread she had tried so hard to eat. There was rising panic in her eyes that was beginning to match his own, but he could not think of that now, had no such luxury; he had to hold the child, clutching her shoulders and stroking her back and chest until it was over and Talia's spent body was clutched in his arms, stinking of vomit and sweat.

The little girl wiped at her mouth, breathing raggedly. "Bane-"

"Quiet-"

"No." She clung to him, her body knotted with pain. "I couldn't help… I couldn't... I'm sorry, I had to-"

"Never mind that," he said, wrapping the covers around her. "Drink something," he said, holding out the bowl to her. She lapped eagerly at it as he went on, "Do not think about it, Talia - little one. You need to rest. Go to sleep."

"Should I - should I eat-"

"After sleep."

She was so tired that she fell asleep almost immediately, which he was glad for. She must not notice that he was clenching the bed so hard it might break, and with her restless dreaming, she would probably awake at the slightest movement. Only when her movements had quieted did he clean the cell. He would not waste water to wash the vomit away, but there was plenty of sand. He grabbed a handful and threw it over the mess, then later kicked the congealed mass out the cell. That done, he went to the girl and wrapped her up in her mother's blanket and his own, then threw his own robe over her for good measure until she was just a bundle in his arms. He moved carefully, making sure not to wake her, until they were at the door of their shared cell.

There was little activity in the prison, but it did not ease the tension he felt. Less men outside meant more in the cells, and right now he needed to go to a specific cell, and Talia was not in any condition to run or even hold onto him. He could not fight this. The little girl he had tried so hard to take care of, done so much to protect, and was the only person who had made the last few years halfway bearable, was fading away in front of him and he did not know what to do.

It did not look like anything in the prison was likely to change, so Bane pushed open the cell door and hurried out, opting to take his chances. As he moved among the shadows, creeping close to the walls, he shifted the girl over so that at least one arm was free, cradling her head with the other.

They were lucky. Nobody met them on the way, and he received no harassment from those inside the cells. He glanced back as he reached his destination. Attention at any time was never a good thing, with Talia so vulnerable, it would be a danger indeed. But he sensed nothing, and so he moved the girl back to a more comfortable position, checking her. She was asleep, and remained so as Bane kicked open a cell door and dragged the prison doctor from his bed, and did not move even when Bane thrust her small body out.

The doctor glanced at her with a lethargy that seemed almost insolent. "And what would I want with her?" he croaked.

Bane pulled her back as the child, deprived of Bane's body heat, began to shiver, even though the air was unbearably hot. "She's sick," he hissed.

The doctor shuffled over and managed a careless glance over the girl. He shook his head and tried to turn away, but Bane grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Help her," he demanded, his patience run out. Could the man not see how ill she was, her cracked lips, her pale cheeks, the lines of her shoulders pulled tight against her skin...

The doctor jerked his arm back. "I already know of this." He spat. "You think she is the only one who is suffering?"

Bane looked around the prison. He had thought the emptiness was due to the heat, but now he could hear the coughing, the quiet moans. It seemed there was a sweetness to the air, a sickly, poisonous smell. Too preoccupied with Talia's illness, he had not noticed it striking down others.

He rounded on the doctor. "Then you know what this is," he said almost angrily. "You can help her!"

The doctor rasped a laugh. "You think - you think you are the first who has thought of me?" He waved a dirty hand around a cell, indicating the broken jars, the shattered bottles, the dried stains of liquids that had spilled onto the floor. And he saw the doctor's face clearly now, how his lip was split open, a livid bruise forming under his eye – rewards for his service left by some of the other men.

Bane took it in and felt the fluttering in the back of his mind grow. He rounded on the doctor. "You have to help her," he hissed, clutching Talia's body more tightly. "What is it? What causes it?

The doctor shook his head slowly. "I do not know. A fever, that comes with a pain in the bones and a chill around the body. The sands bring it… or the insects…" He shrugged, referring to the little biting gnats that sometimes swarmed around the prisoners.

"You must have something," he said, the facade of anger beginning to crack. "To bring the fever down or stop her from shaking."

The doctor shrugged. "Keep her cool. Let her rest."

"Do you think I have not done that already?" Bane shouted, desperation finally breaking over him. "She shivers, she begs for warmth, she sleeps but does not get up to eat or drink-"

"I tell you, I have nothing," the doctor snapped, sitting back on his bed. His eyes passed over the little girl indifferently. "There is nothing here to treat her with." It seemed that Talia had grown very cold and still in Bane's arms.

The doctor continued to murmur, "Once, I might have… but it was a long time ago, when I still lived outside. You cannot find it here."

Outside… against his will, his eyes climbed the ascent up the walls of the pit. He had watched man after man attempt the climb and fail, and he had sneered at the thought of ever escaping the prison. Why try, when so many others had failed?

Now, for the first time, as he held a feverish little girl in his arms and could find no way to protect her, he was considering climbing out.

"So you leave her to die," he snarled, throwing his anger at the nearest target.

The doctor turned away. "Feed her, give her water. Pray that she's strong enough to last through it."


	2. Drown in Nothing

He brought her back to the cell and wrapped blanket and robe around her, and when she was still - too still, said his mind, but he could do nothing for that - he stole outside and waited for the food to come down.

As the number of inmates dropped, the savagery of the remaining men had only increased. With so many ill, the healthy had begun taking more than their fair share of food, hoarding bread and preserves and skins of water in their cells. At night, the most cunning and greedy broke into the cells of the sick, and Bane was awoken more than once by the pleadings of the weak and ill towards the strong. But there was no mercy in the pit, and too often, such begging ended with sickening punches and whimpering cries in the darkness. The stench of death filled the prison as the men succumbed to the disease and rotted in their cells with nobody to drag their bodies outside.

Bane was desperate. Before the box was even placed on the ground, men had begun leaping at it from off the higher levels, the steps, clawing the wood slats with their nails. Bane grabbed one man and dragged him off, tore his hands into the robes of another, then turned around and kicked aside those who were closing in around him. He fought with such a fury that the men soon backed off, muttering discontentedly behind their rags as Bane tore apart the box and snatched twice his share of food, and still it did nothing, nothing at all, for all the food he forced down her mouth came up in a stinking mess a few hours later, and only drained her of energy as her body choked and heaved even when there was nothing left to bring up. And when she seemed to have finished and had rolled over, exhausted, she started to cough, air wheezing out of her throat. Bane had to grab her and hold her up until she spat up again, then make her lie on her side so that she would not choke on her own vomit again. Then, while she slept huddled into the bed, he wiped her face gently with a rag and disposed of her vomit, ignoring the smell rising from her thin body, and looked up at the walls of the pit, angrily, helplessly.

A prison once filled with the shouts of men, the clanging of cells, the brutal thuds and sickening crashes from fights, had gone quiet, save for moaning, retching, and the rare shuffling sound of a body being dragged out to be dumped in the bottom of the prison. Even the healthy were falling ill, and not even Bane was immune, but he ignored the dizziness and hot fever, forced it away by will alone. He could not be sick as well. He could not afford to be sick.

It was so still, so silent, that Bane risked bringing Talia out to the communal toilet, though she wobbled on legs that lost all their strength and had nothing in her to expel. The prison had begun to reek with the stench of vomit and bodies rotting in the sun. The only sound was that of flies hovering over the corpses and sick inmates, and Bane found himself in a constant, futile battle to keep them off himself and, more importantly, off Talia. It was an act of desperation, but he would not have them eating her as if she had already died, as if she were one of the dead men lying around him...

He contemplated making the climb. So many inmates were ill that he could leave Talia alone in the cell and gaze up at the walls. He pulled on the rope, testing its hold, looking up at where it was pinned to a stone many hundreds of feet above.

What good was a line if he could not leave - not for fear of falling, but fear of what might happen to Talia?

He was strong enough, he was sure of that, but not Talia, too weak and sick to even move from her bed. He would not leave her in the pit alone, with no one to care for her. She would die without him, would have died already had he not been there, forcing her to eat, to drink, to live. And if she should recover, he had to remain to protect her. He would not leave, would not abandon her, for he would only come back and find her body, beaten and violated as her mother had been.

There was a pain in his fingers, and he realized he had been squeezing the cord in his hands until his knuckles had turned white. He released it, letting it swing and smack against the wall. The rope had left its imprint in his palms.

He could not toss her over his shoulder and hope she could cling onto him as he made the climb. He might tie her to his body, but the jump – she had no strength for it, and he would not make it burdened by her body. He grabbed the rope again and pulled, hard, not caring if its rough threads burned against his skin. He pulled again, and again, so hard he thought he might tear it loose from where it was held, the escape that seemed so simple but was so useless, useless...

"Bane!"

He whirled around at Talia's cry and ran back to his cell, his mind forgoing the fluttering fear in the back of his mind and bursting straight into panic - foolish, idiotic thing to have left her, to have assumed the sickness would incapacitate the others - and he slammed open the door with his body ready to do battle with whatever man had dared to come and touch her.

But he found Talia alone and unharmed, save for her frantic flailing in the bed. She had shoved her covers off and was halfway out of the bed, one hand reaching for the floor.

He grabbed her arms, so thin he thought he might snap the bones if he pressed too hard. "Talia - child, stop." Her breath went out of her in a whoosh when she saw him, her hands clinging to his robe as if she might never let go. He pulled them away gently, trying to make her lie down, but her bony little fingers would not let go. "Little one, stop it. Stop. Let go."

At last, she released him, whether because of what he said or because she had no more energy left to hold onto him, he wasn't sure. He lowered her back down to the bed, rubbing at where she had left marks on his wrist, and asked, "Why did you cry out?"

Her eyes seemed to bore through and past him. She whispered, "You weren't here..."

He sat on the bed, trying not to sigh. "I am here now."

"No... you weren't here and you were gone..." She gasped, rearing up and trying to grab his arm, but he took her shoulders and laid her back down. She twitched, eyes glazed over and wide. "You were leaving. You were leaving."

Bane held onto her. "No. Little one-"

"You were at the - the - the wall - the rope-" Her breath was coming in gasps. This was more than she had been able to do for the past few days. "You were climbing. Bane, you can't climb! You were going to leave-"

"I was not-"

"You said you wouldn't leave, you said you wouldn't!" She clung to his fingers, digging her nails into them. "I won't be sick anymore, Bane, I'll get better, much better, please don't go-"

" _Talia._ " He hissed out her name. "I was not leaving you. I _will not_ leave you, little one, is that understood?"

Her eyes searched his face for a lie, though how she could see when she looked so blank was beyond him. "You were at the wall..." she repeated.

"Only to check-" Her hand grasped his. "-to check the rope. Little one-" But he could not explain his thoughts there, that he had been looking up at the sky, at the outside world, thinking of food he would not have to fight for, medicine that could heal her, a bed and home where he did not have to worry of her being taken or beaten or killed.

So he only said, "Little one... I was thinking only of the sun." He stroked her cheek. "You remember the sun?" She dipped her head, drooping off the pillow. He readjusted her and went on, "When you are better, I will let you sit out in the sun. I will let it warm you." I will climb out with you, I will take you out where it will be closer, I will let you see it sitting in the sky instead of hovering over a pit, I will let you watch it rise and set instead of dropping beyond the lip of the pit...

She was smiling, a small weak smile that made her dry lips crack. "The sun..." She nuzzled her hot face into his hand, breaths coming unevenly. "Can I see the sun? Now?"

"No, later, when you are... well." He cupped her head. "You will be well, little one, do not fear."

"I'm not afraid." She sighed, content for all that she was ill. "You're here."

No, she had never been afraid, not for long. She had always been fearless, her bright eyes devoid of the paranoia and cruelty that marked the other prisoners. She had lost her mother and she had grieved, but with her child's short memory and attention span, she had gradually left it behind, and she was not afraid of the men, not truly, for Bane had always been around to shelter and protect her. And Bane would do anything to keep her fearless, to keep her innocent.

"Bane..." she whispered after a moment. "Look."

She smiled again, gazing raptly at the corner of the cell. Bane stared at it as well, seeing nothing of interest, then back at her, though so intent was her gaze that he found himself looking back again.

"What is it?" he asked quietly, folding his palm over hers.

"You don't see..." Talia tried to get up but managed only to shift over an inch. "Mother..." She reached out to whatever shadowy figure it was that only she could see.

Bane stood abruptly. "Go to sleep, Talia." She paid him no attention, her oddly blank eyes still fixed on the corner of the cell. He grabbed her and rolled her over. "Sleep, now," he said, a second before he realized she was whimpering at how loud his voice had grown. But he did not want to be reminded of her mother. He did not want to think that her spirit was waiting and calling her daughter away from him, reaching ghostly hands out to snatch her away.

At night, he slept with her cradled into his body, blocking all view of that corner that he would not look at, thinking that if he could deny her mother's existence, then he could deny her power.

She could not have Talia, he thought fiercely to himself, to the ghost that may or may not even be real. He wrapped a heavy arm over Talia's thin, fragile little body. She had abandoned the child, she had left her to be raised by him, she had not even cared for the child while she lived, preferring to weep over the husband who had abandoned the both of them to the darkness of the pit. Talia could barely even remember her, and Bane had been more of a parent to her than her mother had ever been. She didn't want Talia and she didn't need her, not the way Bane needed her.

Morning found him still awake, though his body felt weighed down with fatigue, and holding Talia in his arms, blankets and all. Maybe, if he held her tight enough, he could keep the life from draining out of her. But the hours passed, and soon the girl was too weak to even shiver anymore. He kept away the ever-present flies, hating how they swarmed around her as if she were one of the corpses. And he watched her, feeling the heat emanating from her small body, the bones that jutted out beneath her papery-thin skin, and the tiny, quivering breaths that came slower and slower.

He lay down with her, in misery, in helplessness. He tried to loosen his hold on her, afraid that he was suffocating her from the desperate tightness of his grip, but his body could not seem to obey him, as if they knew what his mind was trying to deny. "Talia..." He stroked her cheek. "Little one..." _You said you wouldn't leave…_ "Do not go. You _cannot_ go…" _You are light, you are hope, you are_ innocence _._ "Do not go after your mother, little one – _Talia_. Don't go. Do not leave me alone in the darkness."

At some point, he dozed off, and when he awoke the cell felt much too quiet. His first concern was to check the girl who lay always beside him, and his momentary thought was that she had improved, she was no longer shaking and stirring fitfully – and then he felt how still she had gone. Her chest was no longer rising.

He sat up suddenly, grabbing her wretchedly thin shoulders. _No, no, no..._ A mindless buzzing panic was threatening to overtake him; she could not leave him, she had _promised_ not to leave him...

"Talia." He shook her. A numbness was entering his body; the buzzing in his mind was pressing against his temples and blotting out any coherent thought beyond that she could not be gone, she could not, because it would have all been for nothing...

" _Talia._ " And when there was again no response, he grabbed her and shouted,

"Talia!"

He shouted again, and again, not caring if any heard him, and suddenly she breathed, body quaking with the gulp of air she had taken. Perhaps it had simply been a long pause between breaths, but she was awake and sweating and shaking, gaze unfocused but frightened. Her eyes flicked about in a wild panic, and she clutched at his clothing and tried to pull herself up.

"Bane...?"

And for a moment he was so relieved that he sank into her, clutching onto her breathing, _moving_ body. "Shh…" He pulled the blankets tighter, letting her feeble attempts at getting up distract him. He didn't want to think about his emotions right now, preferring to shut away the desolation, the relief, that moment when everything in her and all hope for him had ceased. "Never mind, little one…shh. I am sorry I shouted. Drink something." She relaxed, and he allowed himself some brief, bitter congratulations for concealing his distress from her. He lifted her head and let her sip from a bowl of water, then soaked a bit of cloth and placed it on her forehead. The girl's eyes fluttered as water dripped into her lashes, then sighed and rested her water- and sweat-soaked head into his chest.

She mumbled into his chest, a question, perhaps, that he did not quite catch.

"Don't talk." He clutched desperate fingers to her head, her uncut hair tickling his fingertips. "Rest. Sleep."

She had already, dragging his hand to herself and closing her eyes, and he thought that she felt just a bit cooler then.

* * *

Her fever broke, but it took many days for her to fully recover. Her body was wasted from lack of food and her efforts to fight the illness, but she could only take small portions of food, her shrunken stomach unable to hold any more. He portioned away greater amounts for her and, when she could sit up without getting dizzy, he rolled her out of the bed and said, "Walk."

So she had, ten times around the cell. When they dared to, he had her go outside and run around the levels, quietly, and up and down the stairs. He made her hang off the bars and ledges until her arms gained strength, shinny up and down them, fight, anything to get her previous strength back. Her legs had shook and her face had grown white and drawn with the effort and a few times she had even collapsed, but she held back any complaint and went on, grabbing onto his arm for support. Only when she was once again the energetic little girl she had been before the illness did he consider the walls of the pit once more.

He had learned at an early age to ignore the men who tried to make the climb. Like all the others, he had once gathered at the bottom, cheering on those who braved the ascent, but after seeing man after man miss the ledge, slip from the rocks, or break their bones when they fell and crashed against the walls, he had lost interest. It was impossible to escape hell on earth; likely the rope was pinned there as some kind of torture, taunting men with the promise of escape. He had promised escape for Talia, knowing that in a few years time, he would not be able to hide her sex from the other men - but for a while, it had been a worry for the distant future, something to mull over only at night, when the struggle to survive was over for the day. It was not a worry for the present, not now, not when she still needed him to protect her. (Not when he still needed her.)

Now, for the first time in many years, he thought of the outside world. It was difficult. The prison was the only home he could remember, and he could not imagine the vastness of the world above. He had only the stories from the men and the tales Talia had passed down from her mother. But outside meant being far away from the inmates. Outside meant medicine he or Talia might need someday, food that was more than moldy bread, salted meat, or the rare vegetable or fruit preserves. It meant water that they did not have to store away until it was stale, shelter beyond the bars of a cell, and freedom. So he started contemplating the walls himself, remembering the routes up the rocks that the other men had taken, the ones that were firmest and fastest, the routes not to take, and the leap. No prisoner had ever succeeded at the leap.

However, no prisoner had ever formed an alliance quite like the one between Bane and Talia.

"Tell it to me again," Talia demanded as they lay together in bed.

He sighed, though more in fond amusement than in weariness. "You will go first. I will tie the rope to you, and you will climb." He looked over at her. "Do you remember what I told you?"

She nodded and eagerly rattled off his rules. Don't look down, don't look back, move only when limb at a time, don't get stuck. Then she traced the quickest routes, the rocks that jutted out the most, the ones that weren't too small to grab but too large for her hands, the stretches of wall worn smooth by sand and wind that she were to avoid.

"And when I get to the ledge," she continued, "I untie the rope and toss it to you. Then you climb up, and tie the rope to me, and…" She paused.

"I will help you jump..." he reminded her, prompting her to continue.

She didn't. "How will you help me?" she asked. He could imagine her frowning in the darkness.

"I will. Just remember that."

They had the rope, and he would hold onto that and pull her up if she fell – _when_ she fell, he did not harbor any illusions of her making the jump on the first try. He would pull her up so that she would not waste strength climbing back up, and so she would not fall to the men who would inevitably be waiting below for any mistake on their part. She would jump and he would catch her and they would try again, over and over and over until they made it. The thought of her at the mercy of the other inmates almost put him off the plan, at least until he remembered her still body in his arms, or saw her gritting her teeth as she tried to run laps around their cell without collapsing.

He saw the outline of her head in the darkness, the small tilt in curiosity. He placed a hand on her forehead. "Never you mind, little one. So I give the rope to you and you jump." He imagined her making the leap, her small body easily flying across the distance, then crawling over the lip of the pit and emerging, blinking, in the sunlight she deserved... "And then it's only a little bit higher, and you will be free."

He heard her shift nearer, her breath hot on his face. "And you will jump too, right?" she asked.

He paused. "Of course."

Another thing he had not told her – that perhaps he might not make the leap. That he might be left behind while she was free. That it would be enough to see her enter the light. She was meant for it, the only ray of innocence in the prison... not him, not he who had embraced the darkness long ago, and if he could aid her in escaping, if he could help her escape with such innocence intact, it would be enough; it would be his redemption.

She did not know this, of course; she was still chattering on about their plan, and he pulled away from his thoughts to her voice.

"- and there's only a little ledge above, right? And then we climb out together!" she exclaimed happily. He felt their small bed rock slightly as she bounced on it.

"Quiet now," he cautioned her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't let the others hear." They would try escaping when most of the other inmates were in their cells, sleeping through the hottest part of the day. It would be tiring on them, the oppressive heat beating down on them, but at least there would be not be so many men gathered at the bottom. If the worst should happen, he might be able to climb down again and lower her to the floor himself.

And another blessing, if one could call it that - the recent illness. There were fewer men about the prison; others were still recovering. It would be safer, at least for a little while.

But then… it took longer than expected for the girl to recover. Too much running made her gasp and double over with a pain in her side; the strength exercises exhausted her. He pushed her as much as he was able and tried to shut himself off to her whining and pleas for just a _bit_ of rest… but there was only so much they could do.

But then… the other men were recovering as well, and what men hadn't been killed off were stronger for it, if fewer in number. And then, as if somehow knowing that the number of men had been depleted, the guards above dropped down a new group, and somehow they were crueler than any Bane had encountered before – perhaps there had been an aborted attempt at revolution above, and these men were possessed of the savagery from failure of their cause. Or maybe a gang had been captured. He did not know, but he kept Talia close and only let her out on rare occasions – which simply hampered her training.

But then… one of the men tried to climb, a large, strong man. Instead of waiting to have the rope tied to his waist, he shoved aside the others and bound himself, and climbed up the walls with a gnashing fierceness interrupted now and then by a sharp tug of the rope, as if to check if it was still attached to the wall. And like all the others, he fell, only this time, something was different. This time, the snap of the rope against his body was accompanied by another snap.

And when Bane rolled over, for even he had heard and known that something was _different_ about this climb, he saw Talia running back to him, eyes large.

"The rope broke" was her whisper as she scrambled up beside him. "Bane, the man fell and the rope – it broke and the man is on the ground…" She clung to him. "Bane, what are we going to do? There's no rope."

He squeezed her hard. "We won't climb," he assured her. "Another day, we will climb, but not now." For worse than any nightmare of the girl at the mercy of the other men, of her body snapping as the rope stopped her fall, was that of the her falling and he unable to catch her in time.

But then… one morning, as Bane made his way back to the cell, bread filling his pockets, one of the prisoners ambled over so that his shoulder deliberately knocked into Bane's, and before Bane could give a retaliatory shove back, the man whispered, "Who is Talia?" A high-pitched giggle. "Who is _Talia_ , Bane? You were shouting to her." His laugh was half-hysterical. "Now show her to us, Bane. Show her!" His leer revealed a flash of yellowed, rotting teeth before he made a dash for the cell. Bane dumped his body at the bottom of the pit, and let the others make their guess as to the cause of death, but as Talia prattled on to him when they were alone in the cell, he could think only of that whispered threat, and wonder how many others knew.

But then… Talia fell sick again. This time it was one of the many dust cough and cold passed around the prison, but still the cell seemed to ring with the child's hoarse choking and her attempts to spit up the phlegm. At night, she kept him up with her strained attempts at breathing and the snuffling of her nose, and when her little body began to heat up again, Bane found himself sleepless with worry and throwing her back into the bed under a pile of blankets.

"It's different," she said to him once, with the vague little whisper that meant the fever haze was upon her.

He drew the blankets tight over the girl, who was resting on his leg; he had divested himself of his robe and had put that over her too. "What is different?" he asked.

"Being sick." She curled her head into his large palm. "The other time... I heard Mother singing. I tried to follow, but she went away." She sighed, relaxing her body against his thigh.

He had to force himself to hold still. "Go to sleep," he managed at last, only to find that she already was.

She recovered, but Bane was all too aware of how fragile their little world was. But there was a hidden blessing – the close contact of the prisoners with one another meant a fast spreading of the illness, and soon the men had taken to their cells again. For a few days, the pit was quiet.

It was on one of those days that Bane scooped up Talia and carried her, hidden under his robe, to the wall. They gazed up at the vast expanse of rock before them.

"Tomorrow," he whispered to her. "Tomorrow, we climb."


	3. Rise as Fire

They were climbing today.

Talia could remember the times the other men climbed. She had peered out at them, her face resting against the bars of her cell, and watched in childish admiration as they climbed, leaped, and fell. She had given no thought to doing it herself – she was too small and too young – but she had sometimes imagined climbing and jumping. When she was young, she had even tried imitating them, shinnying up the bars as far as she could (which wasn't far) or leaping off the bed for some imaginary perch.

Her mother had always pulled her away from such viewings. She had no thought of climbing, was resigned of her life in the prison. As for Bane, he had only scoffed at them, and told her it was hopeless, that he had seen dozens of them attempt the climb and fail. He was content with their life, as she was; for both, it was the only home they knew. But she knew something had changed after she fell ill. There was a restlessness in him now, an energy that he had used to push her to work harder and be stronger than ever before. More than a few times, Talia had seen him looking out their cell at the wall, eyes tracing the route up to the opening.

When he had told her that they were going to make the climb, she had looked at him and repeated his words back at him: "You said nobody has ever made it…" She imagined the leap, the fall, pain and death.

He had stroked her head and said, "They always went alone. We won't. I will help you."

And that had almost calmed the fear she felt when she looked up at the opening of the pit. Now, it was not the hard climb she feared – it was the unfamiliar world outside. It was the fear that clenched her stomach as soon as she had woken up and seen him sitting on the side of the bed. He had put in small pieces of bread in the folds created by her clothing and whispered, "For when you make it out." Not _if_ ; _when_.

She thought of his words now as she gazed up, blinking her eyes up at the sun shining directly above them. It was swelteringly hot, and Bane had wrapped his head with muslin cloth to shelter his face from the sun, though he left his face uncovered. Talia had not; she liked the heat, and it didn't make her feel slow and sluggish like it did the other men. She flitted up the levels of the prison, taking the quick, quiet steps he had taught her. They reached the wall without incident, most of the other prisoners still dozing, waiting for the cooler part of the day. She turned around as Bane joined her, both their eyes following the broken length of rope, unreachable from where they were.

"Ready yourself," he said, and lifted his arms in front of himself. It was how he had taught her to fight, by having her punch and chop and kick at him. She obeyed his cue, smacking her fists into his hard muscles until her arms were warmed up. But they could not spend too much time doing that, and after a few moments, he checked over his shoulder and lowered his hands.

"Lift your arms," he whispered, and hooked his hands under her armpits. She tensed automatically, getting ready to draw her legs up.

"Good?"

She nodded and raised her hands up, feeling a surge of adrenaline run through her. He lifted her up.

"Pretend the rope is around you," he whispered in her ear. "Don't be afraid."

She twisted her head around to look at him. "I'm not."

He hoisted her onto the wall.

As soon as he released her, she started to climb, though the very act of staying on the wall without his support was draining. She had to constantly glance up, trying to recall the easiest, fastest paths, but looking up for too long hurt her neck. But she was light and quick, and after a few moments of unfamiliarity, she started to learn which rocks to grab onto, to remember the stretches of wall to avoid. A few times she would pause, stuck, and feel a dull sense of panic begin to overcome her, for staying still sapped her of energy that she knew she needed to move on, but then she would find another handhold, or shift her position up, and extricate herself from the problem. Sweat was dripping down her neck and prickling her back, making it itch, but she ignored it. And she heeded his advice – testing each rock, grabbing firmly, only moving one hand, one foot, one limb at a time, and never, ever looking down, though the temptation to drop her head and just rest was growing stronger with every foot she ascended. She shook herself inwardly, thinking instead of what they were to do, a litany in her mind:

_Climb the wall, get to the ledge, wait for Bane, make the leap together._

Only she didn't know how she could ever jump, when there was no rope – no. She shook the thought from her mind, and even more so the reminder that she herself had no safety line at all. But that didn't matter, she thought, making a lunge for the next handhold. Bane was below, ready to catch her if she fell. The thought calmed her, and she managed the next few feet easily.

A distant shout, however, broke her concentration. A bang, of metal hitting stone, made her start and almost lose her grip, and then –

"Talia, go! Go!"

Another shout followed, but this was not Bane's voice. She had been noticed, she had been seen, and her protector, her friend, was in danger… But she could not, would not look back – to look back meant shifting her weight so that she would surely plummet down. Yet she heard the calls growing louder, and knew that one inmate, and another, and another, was getting up from their bed, awoken by the shout of that one stupid, observant man. She quickened her climbing pace, feeling the dredge of fear rising – and what was happening to Bane, to her friend, her protector?

 _Climb the wall, get to the ledge_ –

Her body was aching, there was a stinging in her palms and knuckles and shins where they had scraped against the rock, and her breaths coming fast and shallow and loud in her ears, but even it could not drown out how the shouting was growing louder, accompanied by the rush of footsteps and the sound of the bar doors ringing across the walls as they slammed open. The voices melded and grew and bounced off the walls and combined with the actual yelling, making it sound even stronger, and as more men picked it up, she could not help herself – she stopped and looked below her –

And then she heard Bane shout, " _Don't_!" Instinctively she jerked her attention back to the wall, looking wildly for the next place to move, and she heard him again. "Keep moving! _Keep climbing_!"

_Climb the wall –_

She scampered up as a dizzying array of memories poured through her, interrupting the litany – the men outside her cell, grabbing her mother, blocking her last view of her mother's face – and she started going even faster, as if the mob of inmates were right behind her. Panic was making her forget the aching of her limbs and the weight of the rope on her, but she was losing her composure, she was not following his rules – and then, as she leaped for the next jutting rock, she felt her foot slip and suddenly her body was dropping, her heart plummeting with it.

" _Talia!_ "

Dimly, in a flash, some part of her mind registered that he had said her name. He had never said her name except in their most secret moments but he had slipped up, and done so in the presence of all the other prisoners, and so he was afraid, terribly afraid. And if her protector felt fear, there was nothing to save her.

Her view swung dizzily; she saw flashes of rock, the prison below her, and Bane, rushing to the wall as if to attack it, all in a blur of gray that sped by her. Instinctively, she dug her hand into the rock, feeling a sudden sharp pain as she cracked her nail – but miraculously, she held, though her shoulder and arm felt as if it were tearing apart as she clung to the wall, as her weight dragged her down - and then her foot found a grip on a rock just below, and as she checked her footing again she looked down.

What she saw made her heart plunge. The mass of men had reached him.

She screamed at the same time he did: " _Climb_!"

– _get to the ledge_ –

She could not look to see if he obeyed her; she had to keep going. The ledge was only a little above her. She heard the men's shouting, sounding angrier, violent – what they sounded like when they took her mother, and it made her climb faster. She had to get to the top, she had to wait for him; she had seen him fight and she could hear a tussle underneath her but he could not face them all and if he was hurt, if he wasn't coming after her – she could not think beyond that wild, tearing uncertainty –

_Climb the wall, get to the ledge –_

She had reached the broken rope, and in a moment of pure survival instinct, he grasped at it, pulling herself up. The rope slapped against the stone, creaking, but she climbed and climbed until suddenly she saw a white expanse at the side of her head. She almost leaped for it then and there, only just remembering that she was level with it but not able to climb on. She made the last few inches, her body screaming in protest all the more for being so close – and then she slammed her body onto the flat surface, all her limbs aching, a stitch in her side and what felt like a great pressure on her chest that made her breathing come out in breathless gasps. She was clambering onto the shelf of rock, she was safe. The thought hit her slowly as she collapsed on top, coming with every gasping breath which tore at her throat and chest – but she was safe, the mob could not reach her –

 _Bane_. She scrambled back from the edge but the view sent her head spinning. The men below had become a restless blur, scurrying frantically along the bottom. They reminded her of the flies that gathered over the waste of the prison, and she shuddered and began to pull back before remembering why she was looking. _Bane_.

To her relief, he was making his way up, many feet below but safe. But in the midst of the tearing hands and kicking legs of the mob, a few tried to mimic Talia and Bane and began climbing the wall as well, though they were seeking violence instead of escape. Talia clung to her perch, but as one, quicker than the others, neared Bane, Talia saw him give the closest a hard kick. It dislodged the man, who tumbled down, bringing down a second climber; both bodies disappeared into the crowd. That was her bit of hope – while the men were fighting over each other, her friend, her protector, was quickly making his way up to her –

For what if the men, now freed of that fear of climbing without the rope, made it to the ledge?

Talia backed up against the wall, trying not to look down. She looked from one end of the ledge to another, then up at the ridge hanging above them. This was the leap he had warned her about, the one all men failed, and she suddenly realized the danger she was in. She had no safety line, nothing to save her if she missed. If she did not catch the ledge on her first jump, she would fall to her death.

_I will help you jump._

_But how?_ she thought frantically, almost angry at her protector for not telling her this. She looked in a panic for something, a way to climb out, a running start, realizing just how small the ledge was – that there would barely be enough room for both of them…

She fell on her hands and knees and peered over the edge, just as Bane happened to look up. His eyes met her wide, anguished ones.

_Make the leap._

She crawled back, standing as far back on the ledge as she could.

"No-"

That was Bane, but for once she paid him no heed.

She ran forward – and as she did, she heard him shout –

"No! _TALIA-_ "

But she knew he would always be there to catch her.

She leaped.

Her fingers found the edge of the rock and held.

Fiery pain exploded over Talia's arms. She kicked her legs out and found the wall at her right side; placing her feet against it, she pushed off against it, found footholds and scrabbled up them and finally hoisted herself up. Launching herself forward, feet still firmly placed on the wall, she scrambled forward until her entire body was on the ridge – and then she collapsed. Her arms were stinging from the exertion and the scrapes and scratches she had sustained. Her legs were numb from the climb, her entire torso aching; even her neck hurt to move. The sound of her heartbeat thudding against her temples was so strong that it was a few seconds before she identified the other, continuous rumbling coming from below – the men were shouting. They were _chanting_.

She hurtled forwards as she saw Bane reach the ledge she had occupied just a few moments before. She backed away to the very edge of the one she was on now. Again, their eyes met. She felt no triumph, no shining acknowledgment of what she had just achieved – she could not, not while he wasn't with her. There was only expectation – she was waiting for him to join her. She knew he could.

_We leave together or not at all.  
_

He did.

As his fingers found the edge, Talia heard a second great roar below, but that was pushed to a corner of her mind as she rushed to help him. He did not need it, in fact got onto the ledge faster than she, but still she grabbed onto his robe and pulled and tugged and dragged until he was sprawled safely along the length of the ridge and staring up into her eyes and she thought she might collapse from exhaustion and the realization of what they had done, though she had not let the latter fully sink into her, not yet.

Then he whispered, "Well done, little one," and raised a bloody, scraped hand to her cheek, and Talia thought something in her might burst from the joy she was feeling, and then, only then, did she let the full extent of the last few moments fill her.

The rest of the climb was easy – a short leap to the next outcropping, then a quick clamber over the edge of the pit – but they took their time, moving carefully. They would not waste their effort, to make it so far and fail due to overconfidence. He had her go first, lifting her onto the ledge, then helping her scale the lip of the pit, for which she was grateful, as her entire body suddenly seemed too weak to support her, let alone climb out. But she was the first to leave the pit and emerge, blinking, into the sunlight, and to gaze out at the world that surrounded her.

 _It was yellow,_ was what she registered first, a brown-yellow for the land around them, a darker gold for the rocks, and a light sandy color from these odd, box-like structures in the distance, set somewhat below them. The air felt fresh, clean. Talia could only remember it smelling this way during the rains. The prison air had a dankness to it, a sweaty, musky smell she only noticed now that she was free of it. She took in great gulps of this new air, even though it was hot and dried up her mouth and throat. She looked at the pit and realized that it was set high, atop a hilltop. The idea of being so far up yet so far below disoriented her for a few seconds. And behind her was a vast array of rectangular structures, stretching higher and farther than she had ever imagined. _Did they touch the sky?_ she wondered to herself, before the world was scooped out from under her.

"Bane-" she managed to say before he collapsed on the ground, clutching her tighter than he ever had before, even tighter than when she had been ill. That time, it had felt like he was trying to squeeze the breath from her body for how tightly he was holding her, but it was nothing compared to now. She wriggled around to give herself some room, then found the soft spot on his side that she liked to lean against.

For many long moments, they gazed out at the world around them. She stirred against his rapidly rising and falling chest, poking her head up at him. He was taking in deep breaths of the air, perhaps enjoying the newness of the smell as she had.

"It's bright," she whispered. Her voice sounded different here, muted by the land that expanded out beyond them. In the prison, the walls had often resonated with her chatter, but here she felt like she might shout and it would be swept away into the sky.

Bane only nodded, pulling up the cloth so that it obscured his face, all except his eyes. She scowled, not liking when he did that, and tried to pull it back down, but he only laughed and pushed her hands away.

"Put up your scarf," he told her, gently raising the cloth tied around her neck so that it hooded her face, shielding her head from the sun. He tightened it under her chin, then rolled up her pants leg and unwound the cloth he kept bound around his right hand, using it to wipe at the cuts and scrapes she had sustained in her climb. He did the same for her other leg, then her hands, then tore the cloth into strips and bandaged her up.

"You're bleeding too," Talia pointed out, indicating his broken nails and scratched up knuckles.

"I will be fine. You are more important."

Only when she was taken care of did he sit back with her, gazing up at the sun, the clouds, the way the sky went endlessly on into the distance. After a few moments, though, Talia escaped her protector's arms and ran forward a few feet. It had felt odd to sit there, so relaxed, so unobservant. Her entire life was spent constantly prowling the shadows and watching for unfamiliar – which, in the prison, meant only her mother, the doctor, and Bane. She saw bane rise, perhaps not liking her being even a little bit away from him. Unable to shake the urge to look over her shoulder, she kept looking for the watchful eyes and clawing hands she had grown accustomed to in the prison, and finally crawled back to the source – the pit. She grabbed the lip of the opening, so much smaller looking now, and peered over the edge.

It was all darkness, a black maw, and she could not understand how it was the same place they had left. Certainly it had not been as brightly lit as outside, but she had been able to see. It did not look like a great dark hole in the ground. But slowly her eyes adjusted, until she could see the ledges they had crossed, the rope attached to the side of the wall. Always, she had looked up and seen the circling edge of the pit narrowing towards the spot of sunlight; now, she looked downwards and saw darkness obscuring the view below. The sounds of the crowd echoed, coming back up to her in a distant, distorted form, and she drew back instinctively, afraid that the darkness might somehow reach up and drag her back down.

She heard Bane get up and join her, wrapping an arm around her waist as if he too were afraid that she might be pulled back down. "What would you like done to them?" he asked her quietly.

Talia looked up at him, feeling a confused swirl of emotions – anger, grief, the need for vengeance warring with the urge to leave it all behind. She gripped the edges of the pit and felt a dull pain as her raw fingernails scraped against the rough stones.

"Do you think they'll come up?" she asked, looking at him uncertainly.

There was a pause. "I don't think so," said Bane. He glanced at her again, and she felt his question – did she want him to return there and exact vengeance? Somehow, she knew he would return to the darkness willingly to make the men pay, if she asked him to. And she wanted to, so much, to show these men that they would rise only to return, to seek vengeance for her mother, for years of torment. Beneath it all was the realization that, should she ask, Bane would leave the freedom he had just attained unhesitatingly; he would return to the darkness to bring about the vengeance she desired. All she had to do was say it. The knowledge made her head swirl.

But she didn't want him to go back down. She wanted him here, where there was sun and light and air. She wanted him to stay with her and explore the world around her and wrap himself around her when they slept. Here, they could do what they want, and the men – she could imagine them forever climbing, trying even harder this time because now they had seen them do it, they had hope. But they would fail, never making the leap, and their hope would poison them, making each fall all the more painful because they had seen them succeed and thought, foolishly, that they had a chance.

It was not as satisfying as a knife in the back, but it would do.

So she said, "No." She pulled back. "Can we go?"

"Of course." He tugged her arm. "This way, little one."

She ran on ahead, stumbling slightly; her legs still felt wobbly, like water. But she would not miss her first steps in the outer world, so she went on ahead for a few more feet before stopping. In the pit, she had been able to see the beginning and end of the prison. If she looked down, she would see the bottom; looking up, the sky; and around her, the walls - three definite boundaries. But there were no such restrictions here. The space was so large, so open, that it made her queasy, and she fled back to Bane. Gripping onto his solid, strong form made her feel slightly better.

He gathered her up, adjusted her head scarf again, then started down the path. As she bounced along, the sickness grew. The prison was terrible, but it had been home, and she knew what she had to do to survive there. This was new; she didn't know anything of how to live here. All she had were the snatches of stories she had heard from her mother, from the doctor, from the other inmates, from Bane. They were enough to tell her that they would not get supplies of food dumped down; they would not have a cell or living materials prepared for them; that in some small way, life in the prison had had its own kind of safety.

But she had Bane. She had her friend, her protector, and she knew with comforting assurance that nothing would happen to her while he was there. So Talia wrapped her arm tighter around his neck and dared to look around.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing to the huge rectangular structures that lay behind the pit.

"Buildings," said Bane, looking up at them. He tilted his head slightly. "A…city."

She mulled the word over in her head. "Are we going there?" she asked.

He contemplated the city and her question for a moment. Talia waited patiently for his answer.

"No," he said at last. "We shall go there." He pointed to the area below them.

"That?" She gazed off at what looked like a patch of stone boxes lying in the valley ahead of them. "What is that? A… city too?"

"I believe it is a village."

"A village?"

"Like a city, but smaller, with homes and markets and people."

"People?" She squeezed herself even tighter to him, imagining men surrounding her, men taking her mother from her, reaching through the bars and trying to grab her.

"Good people." He seemed to think it over. "Better people."

"Oh." She loosened her hold on his neck and looked back down at the village, shielding her eyes with her hand. People... all she knew of people were the men of the prison. She imagined even more of them, and without the safety of their cell...

But Bane had said they were good people – people like her mother, and Bane. She thought she might like people like that.

"Yes. Let's go there," she said decisively, pulling on his robe.

She detected his smile under the cloth. "Very well, little one." He got a tighter grip on her and started down the path. She watched him step over the gravel, then passed her gaze around their entire world, the sand, the huge cliff of rocks, the village below…

She tugged at him again as a cluster of black things soared over her head, making odd, chirping noises. "What are those?"

"Birds."

She smiled, wheeling her head about to watch them go. It was something her mother had told her about. "And that?" She indicated the patches of what looked to be thick yellow string.

"I think… grass."

"And those?" Large green bundles huddling near the buildings.

He smiled. "Trees."

She twisted her head back to look at them. "Do they have…" remembering an old story her mother had told her, "fruit… on them?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not." He continued down the path. "But I think the village will definitely have some." He tightened his hold on her as the way down grew steeper.

She felt no such caution. "Faster!" she chanted, laughing as they went sliding down the rocks. She pushed at his body until he set her down. Then she gathered up her courage and took a few small steps ahead of him. It was not so bad, she thought, going ahead a little more – though she made sure to look back at Bane once in a while for reassurance. She picked up speed as she went further down the hill, then crouched and went skidding along on her bottom, giggling at how fast she could go. The sand was hot, the stones quite bumpy, and she could feel it all with her too-thin shoes and ragged clothing, but still – they were safe. They could do what they wanted. They were free.

She waited for him to join her, and she could tell, even with the cloth covering his face, that he was smiling, that he was happy too. She grabbed his hand, and together they headed for the village below.


	4. Perish in Eternity

The day was hot, though not enough to deter the people from the market. It was not unexpected; heat did not stave off hunger, and they needed to eat. But Ra's al Ghul could only assume that it was their incredibly high tolerance for such heat that gave them the energy to mill about in such a crowd while haggling at the top of their lungs.

Once, he had worked in such sun-soaked spots, but years of living in a snowy fortress atop a mountain had made him appreciate the cold more. In the cold, you could put on layers of clothing, build a fire – even the body had its varied defenses against it. But in heat? The only things to do were to strip and sweat. Though this was clearly not the case with these people, who were generally dressed in long, loose robes, their faces swathed from the sun or sand or both. Ra's' dark clothing had been made to make for ease of movement and blending into shadows, but all it was really doing now was making him feel very out of place, not to mention a bit sweaty.

Still, though, he liked the city, though he didn't think the word quite fit it, especially since he had just come from a metropolis where just one of the glittering chrome building likely housed a larger number of people than existed in this city. But this place – city, town, village – had a dusty kind of charm, made up as it were with low, mud-brick buildings and wooden stands. He liked also the throng of people – the stalls with their wares, shopkeepers praising their items, prospective customers bargaining for them while their children ran about the streets, the scrape of their sandals melding with the hoarse shouts of the adults around them. A small group of ragged urchins had just passed by him, including a straggling girl at the very back. He had just returned from a mission of great delicacy, involving some amount of skill in fiddling with the desires of the wealthy and the corrupt, so after being surrounded by people of that nature, it was good to view the other side of the coin.

He watched the girl who had just brushed by him, or at least, he thought she was a girl. She was wearing pants and a long tunic; the only thing that suggested she was female was how she had tied her scarf around her head. Evidently she had not been part of the crowd of children, for she was now alone, purchasing some fruit from a stall. She looked to be around six, though Ra's thought she might be a very small eight year old. However old she was, she had to stand on tiptoe to grab some of the fruit piled at the top and then pass them over to the shopkeeper along with a handful of coins. Finished, she wrapped up the fruit in a cloth and tied it firmly, then started walking down the street. Ra's wondered idly where the child's parents were. She was certainly no orphan, not with that money or that air of confidence about her, though he did note the caution with which she walked the streets, hugging the building walls and deftly avoiding any contact with the milling crowd.

And then, just like that, the girl was dragged into a narrow alley dividing up the market place from the homes. It had been a long time since Ra's was shocked by anything, and this was no exception, but he did find himself pausing at the sheer speed with which the girl had been taken. More surprising was how quickly his hand had gone to the sword at his back. He was no hero, to go swinging about killing criminals whenever he met them; by all rights he should conclude whatever business he had here and return to the League. But didn't fighting evil mean starting from the bottom as well as the top?

He made his decision and rushed to the alley. Evidently, this was some kind of planned raid, for though it had been only one man who had dragged the girl away, there were now half a dozen of them surrounding her, pouring down the other end of the alley, one of them even coming up from behind Ra's. It certainly seemed a lot of work for one little girl with a bag of fruit.

The one who had dragged the girl away in the first place had pinned her to the alley wall all the way in the back. The alleyway was narrow, widening only at the end, and bereft of any trash or structures for him to properly conceal his entrance, so Ra's was taking his time getting there. The other men had already gathered down at the other end, save for a straggler who had come up behind Ra's and was quickly making his way down the alley. However, Ra's could hear them and their harsh laughter at whatever was going on. He pressed on a little faster, betting that whatever had them occupied would just distract attention from him.

There was a smack, and Ra's' hand automatically went for his sword again, thinking that the criminals might have hit the girl. But the leader had only slapped his hand into the wall next to the girl's head, trapping her there. He jerked down his head scarf and started spitting out words. The language was more than a bit familiar to Ra's, but the man was speaking some peculiar street vernacular of it that was more difficult to understand. He recognized quite a few words – "girl", for one, and "money" – but the rest was altered enough, grammatically and phonetically, that he would have had a bit trouble even if the words were being spoken at a slower pace. There was something about a home and a fight, but the word that kept cropping up was "father". And "death", of course, though that was to be expected. He could only imagine the various ways they planned to punish the unlucky child.

The man snatched at the bag the girl was holding, but she shoved his hand away and put the bag behind her back. Her next words were in a dialect Ra's did understand.

"You can't take that. It's _mine_."

The words were a bit stiff on the girl's tongue, but certainly understandable. The men only laughed. Their leader switched to the more formal dialect the girl was speaking in. "Little girl, hand it over, and perhaps your father will receive more than one piece of you." He reached for the head scarf the girl had covered her head with.

The girl jerked back. "My father won't let you."

"Father is not here, girl!" the man shouted, raising his hand.

And then, the man who had come up behind Ra's grabbed the leader's hand and said, "Then maybe you should look behind you." He pulled the cloth down from his face. Then he grabbed the front of the leader's robe and spun him into the wall behind them.

Chaos. The other men leaped on him but were thrown back by a flurry of fists and kicks. Ra's watched with increasing interest as the man – the girl's father, he presumed – smashed his forehead into one man then brutally drove his fist into the stomach of a second. The girl, meanwhile, had swung her bag of fruit into the face of a third; she leaped about, ducking the blows of two others and kicked out their feet from beneath them, then headbutted the sixth man's stomach - or at least attempted to. She was so short she couldn't quite come up there, though the result was a sudden shriek of pain from the man. As he screamed and tumbled to the ground, she chopped her forearm into another's stomach, sending him sprawling back towards her father, who whirled around and slammed the attacker's head into the wall.

It was brutal, ugly fighting, with none of the fluidity and grace Ra's had come to expect while watching his own acolytes train. The man, the father, of the girl, took as many blows as he gave, though he shrugged them off as if he did not feel them, twisting around to block a blow aimed at the girl. The child herself was more adept, leaping and letting fly her little blows like a cat, and between the two of them, it got the job done.

The man stood for a moment, collecting himself, then moved behind the wall and out of sight. Ra's pushed himself forward and emerged into the wider space. Amidst the groaning, bleeding bodies of the defeated, would-be thieves, the man was kneeling in front of the girl, retrieving the fruit she had dropped. The girl snatched at it and opened it up.

"They bruised my fruit," she pouted, as if she weren't standing amongst a pile of unconscious men.

Her father pulled up his headcloth so that it once again obscured the lower half of his face, then touched the girl's forehead. "Be glad it's the only thing bruised." There was a note of humor in his voice. "You do have a knack for finding trouble, little one."

" _They_ grabbed me," the girl said, then began muttering in a dialect completely foreign to Ra's. The man poked at her cheek and responded in the same language, fixed her scarf, which had gone askew in the fight, then lifted her up into his arms.

The girl's eyes suddenly flicked up and found Ra's, and she must have indicated his presence to her father somehow, because in the next moment the man turned around and was facing him. His face was covered so that only his eyes were exposed, but even if Ra's had not been the leader of the League of Shadows, he would still have detected the extreme hostility emanating from every movement of the man's body.

"You fight with skill," Ra's said as way of introduction, "and passion, and unusual technique. It is rare for me to see such things in ones so young." He indicated the girl. The man stepped closer to her. "I represent a group of people interested in those like you, and I…" But here he stopped, because the man had shoved him aside without so much as a glance and was making his way down the alley.

It was an odd feeling, to be so thoroughly ignored, so odd that Ra's found himself just standing there for a few seconds. By then, the man and his daughter were about halfway down the alley, and Ra's had to hurry to catch up to them. He popped out the alleyway in time to see them moving up the street, away from the marketplace and towards the homes.

He followed them quickly, brushing past people. Within a few moments, he had caught up. As he muttered an apology to an old woman he had bumped into, he saw the girl look up from where her head was resting on her father's shoulder. Her eyes latched onto his face, then shifted away just a shade too quickly. Ra's saw her tilt her head towards the man's head. Her mouth was hidden in the curve of his neck, but Ra's had no doubt she was whispering warnings into his ear. Clever girl... But whatever she had said, it did not make the man quicken or slow his pace, which only made Ra's more cautious. A man who was not worried about someone following him was a man with a plan, a plan he had likely executed many times before.

The two moved into a quieter area of the city, pushing past people; like the girl, the man did not seem comfortable near others, shoving those who drifted too close, even if it earned him a hateful glare in return. They soon turned into a large building, most likely some sort of residential apartment, though it didn't look well cared for – dusty, falling apart, and rather squat and unnoticeable. Ra's paused outside the doorway. It didn't take a member of the League of Shadows to realize that whatever plan the pair had, it probably involved grabbing him from around the corner and slamming him into some sort of hard surface. He sighed, reaching for his sword, currently sheathed and hanging from his back. Might as well get it over with. He walked through the door.

It all happened exactly as he planned, though he was surprised at just how hard he was shoved into the wall. It seemed a little much. The man had grabbed him by the arm and swung him around, much like what had been done to a certain robber, then had put his arm against Ra's' neck. Ra's took a second to verify that the girl was nowhere in sight, then let his attention focus on the man shouting in his face.

"Why are you following us?!"

Ra's tried to explain that it was hard to speak when someone's arm was pressing against his throat, only for the man to pin his left arm to the wall and demand again, "Why are you following us?!"

The pressure on his neck loosened slightly. Ra's said, voice a bit hoarse, "You ignored me in the street."

"You stood by and let a girl be attacked," the man retorted, eyes fierce.

"You seemed to be handling it quite well on your own." Ra's gripped his sheathed sword, currently in his free arm. "Which is why I wanted to offer you a proposition of sorts."

"Why the hell should I trust any proposition of yours?"

"My friend, I have my sword with me. I could have skewered you at any point during this time."

The man snorted from behind his head cloth, not even bothering to look down. "You would have to deal with the little one at your wrist first."

Ra's glanced downwards and saw the little girl, her father's fiery expression mirrored on her face. She held a small knife, its blade pricking Ra's' wrist.

Impressive.

"It seems we are at an impasse," he said amiably.

"It seems you are at our mercy," the other man snapped, his grip on Ra's' other arm tightening. He had no doubt that the man could crush his bones if he wanted to.

"You are skilled," said Ra's, trying to shrug as best as he could while pinned to the wall. "But it would not be difficult for me to push the girl away-" he flicked his wrist so that the handle of the sword at the girl's face, stopping it inches before it could hit her but still causing her to flinch back "-and for me to stab-" His last words were cut off, for the man had increased pressure on his throat – not because of Ra's' threat to him, he realized, but because of the one to the girl.

"You will not do that again," he hissed.

Ra's wheezed, "But I could have." He dropped his sword to the ground, a gesture of trust. "My proposition?" It took some effort to get the words out; he didn't have much breath left.

There was a pause, during which the man and girl exchanged glances. After a second, the man gave a quick nod, at which the girl lowered her knife and the man released Ra's.

"What is your proposition?" said the man, a mocking undertone added to the last word.

Ra's picked up his sword. "Perhaps we should discuss this in more private surroundings?"

Another quick glance between the two. The man nodded at the sword, a cue for the girl to leap forward and wrench it from Ra's' hands. Only then did the man say, "Fine."

The girl ran down the hall and retrieved her bag of fruit before hopping back into the man's arms, Ra's' sword still in her small hand and flung over the man's back. Without another word to Ra's, the two started down the hallway and up a set of solid, mud-brick stairs and walked down another hall before they reached a door near the other end. Ra's noticed how the girl always kept her gaze on him – the man's eyes in the back of his head, so to speak. The man settled the girl back and was about to open the door when they were accosted by an old man, shouting at them in that language Ra's only partially understood.

The man pushed him aside in a weary sort of way, but the old man continued to hound at him, blocking the door and snapping words in a dry, reedy voice. Ra's caught the word "money" once more, but also a few related to time – mostly the word "late". It wasn't hard for Ra's to figure out what was going on.

Finally, the man lost patience and just about shoved the older man aside. This seemed to be a normal thing for the old man, who continued to shout things even as the two went inside their home. The man gestured impatiently at Ra's to follow, then closed the door behind him.

They were inside a bare room, also made up of mud and bricks and very bare and spartan – there weren't any decorations or hangings to distract the eye from the light brown blandness of the walls, save for an open window with a cloth attached to the top to draw over it. The man went to the makeshift curtain and drew it over the window. The room was thrown into darkness and silence. There was something quite closed in and insular about the room - almost claustrophobic - and it was not helped by a strange, sickly sweet smell permeating the air. But the man and child seemed to like it, for Ra's perceived a subtle relaxing of their bodies, a loosening in the man's muscles. There was a single bed at the far side, shoved up against the wall and with a small pile of clothing at its foot, a table and chairs, a stove of sorts, and a small box for storage, as well as many, many books. Ra's ran his eye down the pile nearest him. They were a varied bunch – some well-kept, others water-damaged and shrunken, and a few looking as if an entire half had been torn from them. Most were thick volumes, but more than a few were thin pamphlets, even a picture book that was looked too simple even for the little girl.

The man crossed to the unmade bed and tossed the girl on it. She laughed as she bounced on it even as the bed creaked ominously beneath her weight. She threw him the bag of fruit, which he caught deftly and brought over to the table. She still held onto the sword. For a few moments, Ra's watched from his place at the door as the man rolled out the fruit and arranged it on the table.

"So," the man said abruptly, without looking up from what he was doing. "Your proposition?" He examined the fruit, taking a third and putting it into the box in the corner of the room. The rotten smell seemed to be strongest there. On top of the box was a collection of bowls and waterskins, which shook as the man closed the box lid, Ra's unable to catch more than a glimpse of the contents inside. The man took a waterskin and squeezed out a small quantity into a bowl, tossing the skin to the girl when done.

"Perhaps we could exchange names?" offered Ra's.

The man pulled out a knife and slammed it, blade first, into the table. "You first."

Ra's lifted his eyebrows slightly. "My name is Henri Ducard," he said, taking on an old alias, adopted a long time ago."I represent an organization that might be of interest to you."

"What organization?" The other man wetted the cloth in a bowl of water and started wiping the fruit.

He smiled slightly. "Perhaps your name first?"

The man glanced back at the girl on the bed, who was sucking on the waterskin. He nodded at her, then flicked his glance up to Ra's and said, "Bane."

The girl swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Talia."

Ra's dipped his head at her. "Talia. Bane."

The man finished cleaning up the fruit and pulled off his head cloth, revealing brown hair and youthful features not yet wrinkled by the sun. "Clothing off before lying on the bed," he said over his shoulder to the girl. She gave an audible sigh, but kicked off her shoes and took off her outer tunic.

"And dust it off," Bane added.

"I _know_ , Bane," she said grumpily, though the remark only seemed to amuse the man. She brushed a cloud of sand off the robe, kicking it carefully into the corner behind the bed. Tossing the clothing aside, she tugged off her own veil. A tangle of dark hair fell free of the cloth, hanging somewhat above her shoulders, but Ra's thought the boyish look suited her. There was something strange about her, but Ra's couldn't quite place what.

"Is she your daughter?" he asked Bane. The girl had scampered over and was tugging at Bane's outer robe. "She does not resemble you."

The man, Bane, tapped the girl's forehead with his finger. She stopped, then held out her arms as he pulled off his robe and deposited it in her arms. Ra's watched as she ran to the window and dusted it off as well.

Bane grabbed the knife, still sticking up from the table surface, and examined the first piece of fruit. "I found her, I rescued her, I raised her," he said shortly. "She might as well be." But Ra's noticed how his eyes followed the girl as she moved to the window before glancing away, almost reluctantly, to focus on the work before him. He sliced the fruit in half, put it aside, and picked up another as the girl scrambled up the window and perched herself on the sill.

"She's quite the climber," Ra's said with some amusement. "What -"

But he was interrupted by the man, who had just looked up. "Talia!" The man dropped the knife on the table with a clatter. "Get off the window."

The girl giggled. "But _Bane_ , I _never_ fall."

"There's a first time for everything," the man muttered, plucking her from off her spot. ("Aw, _Bane_ …") "Do not whine to me; one day I will be scraping you off the ground below," he said sternly, though his hand drifted tenderly through her hair and lingered on her cheek. He dropped her on the bed and made his way back to the table. "And _stay_ ," he said without turning around as the girl tried to creep away.

A few seconds of silence followed the exchange. The man returned to cutting up the fruit, the repetitious chopping noises matching the girl's creaking bounces on the bed. Ra's indicated the books with his sword. "You like to read."

"I like to learn. Education is the only way for a man to rise," the other said, tossing away a damaged piece.

Ra's chuckled. "An interesting view. An idealistic one."

The man began slicing up the fruit with what seemed to be rather unnecessary force. "You think you know better?"

"I think I have a bit more... experience in these matters, yes." Ra's suppressed a smile at the other's irritation. "Money is one way to get ahead in today's world. Money or status. But the fastest avenue is power. Unfortunately, education is simply not as valued as it used to be."

"Knowledge is power."

"Clichés do not suit you my friend. I suggest you stay away from them." He deliberately led his hand drift towards one of the books, and saw Bane glare at the offending limb. Possessive man. "And judging by your, ah, landlord's remarks, you seem to be lacking in all three of those methods." He folded his arms. "You may soon have to find less comfortable quarters than this."

"We've lived in worse." The man started to remove the pits.

"The streets?"

Bitter laughter broke through the conversation - not from the man, but from the girl perched on the bed. Ra's looked at her. The sound didn't fit coming out of her mouth. She said, "Much worse than that."

Ra's examined her, was about to ask her a question, but then the man, Bane, turned around suddenly and strode over to her. "Come here, little one," he said, with such gentleness, such intimacy, that Ra's felt oddly uncomfortable. The man scooped the child up by the waist and came back to the table (the girl leaving the sword behind on the bed), Talia giggling in an entirely different way now, dumped her onto the chair (which, liked the bed, creaked as if about to shatter) and gave her a piece of fruit. The rest he gathered onto a plate, which he set in front of her. Ra's cast aside memories of the same intimacy, of a woman as exotically beautiful and gentle as a breeze, and focused on the man, though he still could not shake the unsettling familiarity of the girl's features.

"So is this your proposition?" asked Bane, sitting down in the chair next to her. "Mocking our living conditions?"

Ra's noticed he wasn't being offered any fruit. "Actually, I was going to offer you a position in an organization that I represent."

Bane nabbed a slice from out of Talia's hand. "For what, fighting? Do they pay well?"

"Actually, we don't pay our members anything."

He snorted. "They must stay for a very long time."

"The rest of their lifetimes, for most of them."

Bane nicked off a bruised part of the fruit and handed it back to the girl. "And what is this organization?"

"We call ourselves the League of Shadows."

Bane laughed out loud, making Talia start and drop her piece. "The League of Shadows?" He caught the slice as it bounced off the table and handed it back to her. "We lived in darkness almost all of our lives. We are not returning to it."

Ra's hesitated, then decided to press on. "I think you would be well-suited for it."

"Really," said Bane disinterestedly.

He stepped closer. "I have heard things around the street. About this building. About you." Bane wasn't looking at him, seemed to be studiously avoiding his gaze, but the girl was not. She looked straight at Ra's, chewing her fruit slowly. Ra's matched her stare and continued, "They spoke of a pair – a man and his daughter – who had systematically eliminated every robber, abuser, rapist, and murderer from this building, even from the streets around it. They didn't go any further, but everybody knows that the safest place to live is right here. And judging by the men who had surrounded Talia here, the rumors weren't wrong, were they?" He stood back. "The landlord should not be so demanding. I want to know… exactly why did you do this?"

The girl looked at the man this time. For a moment, they didn't speak.

The girl cast her eyes down and dropped her head back to her food. Bane watched her a second longer before speaking. "Where we grew up, we were surrounded by criminals. I would not have them here, near her."

An odd remark, and it piqued Ra's' curiosity. "If I may ask… where were you raised?"

"Tell us about your 'league' first, and then maybe we'll tell you about our old home." The girl was halfway finished with her slices. She shoved the plate at the man. As Ra's spoke, the man pushed the plate back, smiling slightly as she smacked his hand and tried to thrust them at him again.

"I represent the League of Shadows, a group dedicated to fighting the criminal underworld." He watched the man and girl's push-and-pull, feeling some irritation at their silly game. "We teach our members the arts of fighting and weaponry, but also deception and theatricality. For centuries we have existed, as whispers in the darkness and as a purging fire, taking down the corrupt, the decadent, the depraved."

The girl's eyes were wide, but Bane only scoffed. "You're mercenaries." He took advantage of Talia's distraction and shoved the fruit back to her. She scowled at him, though there was no true anger in it.

Ra's said, "Far from it. Mercenaries, assassins, vigilantes – they serve themselves. Our only path is justice." He leaned towards him. "You have spent great time and effort ridding one building, one street, of criminals. Why not fight to rid the city of them? The country? The world? The men you faced in the alley – were they former tenants of this building, angered by their eviction? They merely fled a little further away, waiting for a chance to strike back. But in the League, we can teach you techniques to not only push them away, but make sure they never come back again."

He settled back and watched as Bane picked up a fruit and ate it, slowly. It was absurdly easy to figure out the man's motivations. All he needed to do was see the way Bane's eyes followed the girl around the room, observe the peculiar devotion that entered his eyes when she looked up at him. Such a simple thing, really, to take his protectiveness towards the girl and spin it into something greater.

Talia lifted her eyes towards Bane, and Ra's furrowed his brow. But the girl… the girl was a mystery, and the hold she had on the man worried him.

Bane caught her glance. "What do you think?" he asked her quietly. It was not the condescending question of an adult towards a child; it was a question between equals.

Her eyes roved over his face. Ra's saw indecision, worry, and something else he could not decipher. Before he could figure it out, it had vanished. The girl gave a quick little nod and looked back down at her fruit, her hand clenching the table. Ra's waited, expecting an answer, but Bane only reached over and uncurled her fist. He touched her face with more gentleness than Ra's thought possible for such a large man, lifting her chin, then whispered something directly into her ear, something even Ra's, trained to listen to the lowest whispers, could not hear. Whatever it was, it banished that shadow from the girl's eyes; just like that, she was a child again, smiling at him.

Bane dropped his hand. "Very well," he said, "we will take a look at your league."

"There is no 'taking a look'," said Ra's patiently. "You join or-"

"We have some conditions," Bane went on, ignoring him.

Ra's raised an eyebrow. No potential member had ever presented demands. Most were grateful just to be rescued from whatever hellish path they had set themselves on. So it was partly for the novelty of the event that Ra's said, "Indeed. What conditions are they?"

Bane jerked his hand at the girl. "She comes with me."

Ra's looked at Talia, who was picking at a pit. He should have expected this one. Nevertheless, he said, "We have no room for children. Better to leave her-"

"No," Bane said flatly as Talia's head snapped up. "She comes with me or neither of us goes."

"You intend to make her a member of the League as well? She cannot be older than-"

"She has already agreed," Bane said sharply. "She comes."

"She will have to train as hard as the rest. We will not provide different accommodations for her or make things easier for her because she is younger and female." He rested his hands on the table, addressing Talia herself. "It would be better for you not to go. I know you are likely just as skilled as your – as Bane, but it is hard, it is difficult, it is not meant for someone as young as you. We do not simply teach you how to fight. We show you how to confront true evil." His voice was intense. "This is not a game for children. Do you not have any relatives to stay with? Siblings? Parents?"

She blinked up at him and looked uncertainly towards Bane. "I have a father…"

Ra's turned to Bane as well. "If she has a parent, then perhaps it would be best-"

Bane slammed his palm on the table. "No. Her mother is dead; her father has never come for her."

"Surely there is somebody else - cousins, grandparents-"

"Her grandfather-" Bane stopped, fists clenching. It seemed to take a great effort for him to say, "She has nobody else except me. She goes with me."

Talia looked up at Ra's with those big, wide eyes. "I can do all the training. I was fighting with him in the alley, remember? And I could have killed you." She smiled winningly.

By all rights, he should have refused. It was more than any member, than any _potential_ member, had ever demanded. Only the thought of the pair's accomplishments – and the fact that Bane looked ready to upend the table if he disagreed – made him hold his tongue. He resisted the urge to rub his brow and reassured himself with the thought that they might not stay even if they came. Bane, at least, sounded rather resistant to the idea. That, of course, would mean he and the League would have to take other measures… but they would come to it when it came.

He sighed. "Very well. The League is-"

"We will also live together," Bane interrupted. "Whatever you have – a house, a room – we share it."

Ra's arched an eyebrow, his gaze suddenly going to the single bed they likely shared. He allowed distaste to color his tone. "That is an…unusual request. The league does not permit relationships of that kind, and will especially not tolerate-"

A crash interrupted his cutting remarks; Bane had shot up, tipping over his chair. "That is not how this is," he growled, looking murderous.

Ra's concealed a smile. Exactly as he expected the man to react. "I believe you," he said, then added with a hint of delicacy, "but others may talk…" Bane waved a hand, brushing aside any social implications. Ra's shrugged. "But if that doesn't bother you, I can try and make arrangements." Inwardly, he was shaking his head at himself. No member justified this sort of treatment, no matter how much potential they had. He almost regretted following them and giving them his proposition. It might have been best to simply leave them in this dusty village, living out their private lives.

No, he didn't really believe that. It was more than just the rumors that swirled around them. There was something compelling about the two, their bond, their passion – the man, with his abnormal fighting technique and extreme, extraordinary devotion to one who was not of his blood (devotion that could therefore be tempered to other causes, Ra's thought), the girl's balance between innocence and darkness (and what might happen should he but tip the scale in one direction). Ra's looked at them both and thought that it would be fascinating to see just how far they might rise.

And if they fell? Ra's thought inwardly that he might watch them anyhow, just to see who and what they would take down with them. Whatever they did, wherever this pair went, positions changed, the world shifted, and all to their whim.

"If you are done with requests?" he asked. The pair exchanged another look, then nodded. Ra's went on, "Very well. The League is located at the foot of a certain mountain range quite far from here – I will provide you a map and money for your journey."

"We do not need your charity," said Bane at once.

"Then do not think of it as such," answered Ra's with a small smile. "Consider it payment. A reward, for what you have done here." He put his sword under his arm and took out some papers, which he laid down on the table. Neither of them took it. "There is a rare blue flower that grows on the eastern slope. Pick one-" he glanced at the girl again "-two, actually, and bring it to us. There, we will show you the way to truly fight evil."

He went to the bed and retrieved his sword, swinging it over his back, then gave a little smile and tip of the head to Bane, who was staring at the table, and Talia, still watching him with those large eyes. "Good day to both of you."

He was at the door when Bane spoke.

"Didn't you want to know where we were raised?" His words were slow, dispassionate. "Where we were born?"

Ra's gave a semblance of hesitation. "It would be helpful."

"Yes," Bane nodded. "You ought to know who you're taking into your… _league_." He picked up the chair and moved it so that he was sitting next to Talia, and handed the last slice of fruit to her.

Ra's said quietly, "You said you were surrounded by criminals when you were young. I assumed you lived in a slum."

The other man snorted. "'Slum'," he repeated mockingly to Talia. Ra's gave no reaction. "A prison," said Bane harshly, holding Ra's' gaze. Talia wiped her fingers on the cloth and settled herself against her protector. "Born and raised, both of us. The inmates were free to move around, though. They killed her mother," he indicated the girl, "but I found her. I protected her." The girl closed her eyes and dragged his arm so that it was around her body. He watched her quietly for a few moments.

"Why were you there?" asked Ra's, as it occurred to him that the League might very well be taking in the kind of people members dedicated themselves to fighting against. "A crime?"

A careless shrug. "Our parents offended somebody more powerful than they, and we were punished alongside them. It does not matter. What matters is that we got out."

"They released you?"

He snorted, still not looking up. "We escaped. It was a couple… years… ago. Moved around. Made our way here. Tried to live." He shifted so that the girl could lie in a more comfortable position, running a finger through her tangled hair. "Can you imagine… coming out of a prison and trying to live like normal people? Not having skills or money or anything other than what we escaped with?" He rested his hand against her cheek, voice low. "We didn't even have any food. The first time we entered a village... it was a market day, and they had great rows of bread, racks of meat cooking, stall after stall of vegetables and fruits... we had never seen a fresh fruit before, and she reached to grab something..." He twisted his fingers in Talia's hair. "They almost had her hand cut off... just for reaching for that piece of fruit." Ra's watched his tightening fists, thinking the man would tear the girl's hair out, but instead he merely untangled a few snarls of hair. "I did what I had to for us to survive, and some days almost wished we could return to the prison."

A considerable silence followed, during which Talia's breathing slowed, deepened; she seemed to be asleep against him. Yet Bane continued to watch her with rapt attention.

"So, Ducard…" he murmured, not breaking his gaze, "what do you say? Do you think we might make worthy members of the League of Shadows?"

There was another long stretch of silence, during which Bane lifted the girl into his lap and let her rest her head against his shoulder. Talia, far from being asleep, opened her eyes and looked at Ra's when he continued to remain silent. But he was thinking, realizing that whatever doubts he might have had about the pair had dissolved.

He measured his next words out carefully. "I think we will be waiting for you... with great eagerness." And he felt just the smallest bit of satisfaction at the surprise that crossed their faces. Born and raised in a prison, exposed to the lowest dregs of humanity… they had seen the true nature of the criminal mind, witnessed its deepest workings. They had witnessed the futility of cells and trials and juries; they knew that criminals must be fought ruthlessly, with no mercy, no understanding. There was no need to teach them about the nature of justice, because they had learned it; it was as much a part of them as their flesh and bone.

"I don't think there's anything left to ask," Ra's said, offering another small smile at their stunned silence. He pushed forward the papers containing the map and some money, which the girl finally took. He could almost imagine the pair arriving at the snowy top of the mountain. It would be a slippery climb, so the man would likely be holding the girl, probably sheltering her under his arm. She would be pressed against the steep mountain walls, Ra's thought to himself, her protector keeping her away from the slope. They would be bundled in thick clothing, faces covered from the biting winds, and in their pockets would be that rare blue flower…

He opened the door. Before he departed, he turned around and looked back at the pair. The girl had unfolded the map and laid it out on the table, pointing to locations with her finger. Bane was absentmindedly counting the money, his eyes flicking constantly from the notes to her face. Ra's watched the way she constantly glanced up at him, how his eyes never really left her face, and knew that it was this relationship that he would have to break. There could be nothing more important than the League, nothing stronger than its ideals – all else had to be second to it. True justice could not be clouded by emotion.

Talia smacked Bane's arm, pointing imperiously at a point on the map. Bane followed her finger, but while the girl looked at the map, he looked only at her.

It would be a challenge, Ra's thought to himself. He always enjoyed those.

He shut the door and walked down the hallway, swinging his sword onto his back.


End file.
